Peer-to-peer communications among communication fabric coupled endpoint devices

ABSTRACT

Computing architectures, platforms, and systems are provided herein. In one example, system is provided. The system includes a management processor configured to initiate a communication arrangement between a first endpoint device coupled to a communication fabric and a second endpoint device coupled to the communication fabric. The communication arrangement is configured to redirect a transfer from the first endpoint device based on an address corresponding to an address range of the second endpoint device without passing the transfer through a host processor coupled to the communication fabric that executes an application initiating the transfer.

RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a continuation of, and claims priority to, U.S.patent application Ser. No. 17/461,149, entitled “PCIe DEVICEPEER-TO-PEER COMMUNICATIONS,” and filed Aug. 30, 2021; U.S. patentapplication Ser. No. 16/267,623, entitled “PCIe FABRIC ENABLEDPEER-TO-PEER COMMUNICATIONS,” and filed Feb. 5, 2019; and to U.S. patentapplication Ser. No. 16/810,944, entitled “PCIe DEVICE PEER-TO-PEERCOMMUNICATIONS,” and filed Mar. 6, 2020.

BACKGROUND

Computer systems typically include bulk storage systems, such asmagnetic disk drives, optical storage devices, tape drives, or solidstate storage drives, among other storage systems. As storage needs haveincreased in these computer systems, networked storage systems have beenintroduced which store large amounts of data in a storage environmentphysically separate from end user computer devices. These networkedstorage systems typically provide access to bulk data storage over oneor more network interfaces to end users or other external systems. Inaddition to storage of data, remote computing systems include variousprocessing systems that can provide remote computing resources to endusers. These networked storage systems and remote computing systems canbe included in high-density installations, such as rack-mountedenvironments.

However, as the densities of networked storage systems and remotecomputing systems increase, various physical limitations can be reached.These limitations include density limitations based on the underlyingstorage technology, such as in the example of large arrays of rotatingmagnetic media storage systems. These limitations can also includecomputing density limitations based on the various physical spacerequirements for network interconnect as well as the large spacerequirements for environmental climate control systems.

In addition to physical space limitations, these bulk storage systemshave been traditionally limited in the number of devices that can beincluded per host, which can be problematic in storage environmentswhere higher capacity, redundancy, and reliability is desired. Theseshortcomings can be especially pronounced with the increasing datastorage and retrieval needs in networked, cloud, and enterpriseenvironments.

Overview

Computing architectures, platforms, and systems are provided herein. Inone example, system is provided. The system includes a managementprocessor configured to initiate a communication arrangement between afirst endpoint device coupled to a communication fabric and a secondendpoint device coupled to the communication fabric. The communicationarrangement is configured to redirect a transfer from the first endpointdevice based on an address corresponding to an address range of thesecond endpoint device without passing the transfer through a hostprocessor coupled to the communication fabric that executes anapplication initiating the transfer.

This Overview is provided to introduce a selection of concepts in asimplified form that are further described below in the DetailedDescription. It may be understood that this Overview is not intended toidentify key features or essential features of the claimed subjectmatter, nor is it intended to be used to limit the scope of the claimedsubject matter.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

Many aspects of the disclosure can be better understood with referenceto the following drawings. The components in the drawings are notnecessarily to scale, emphasis instead being placed upon clearlyillustrating the principles of the present disclosure. Moreover, in thedrawings, like reference numerals designate corresponding partsthroughout the several views. While several embodiments are described inconnection with these drawings, the disclosure is not limited to theembodiments disclosed herein. On the contrary, the intent is to coverall alternatives, modifications, and equivalents.

FIG. 1 is a diagram illustrating a computing platform in animplementation.

FIG. 2 is a diagram illustrating management of a computing platform inan implementation.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram illustrating a management processor in animplementation.

FIG. 4 illustrates example cluster management implementations.

FIG. 5 illustrates example cluster management implementations.

FIG. 6 includes a flow diagram that illustrates an operational exampleof PCIe fabric enabled peer-to-peer data transfers in compute units inan implementation.

FIG. 7 includes a flow diagram that illustrates an operational exampleof PCIe fabric enabled peer-to-peer data transfers in compute units inan implementation.

FIG. 8 is a diagram illustrating components of a computing platform inan implementation.

FIG. 9 is a diagram illustrating components of a computing platform inan implementation.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

FIG. 1 is a system diagram illustrating computing platform 100.Computing platform 100 includes one or more management processors 110,and a plurality of physical computing components. The physical computingcomponents include CPUs of processing modules 120, Peripheral ComponentInterconnect Express (PCIe) devices 125, storage units 130, networkmodules 140, PCIe switch modules 150, and graphics processing units(GPUs) 170. These physical computing components are communicativelycoupled over PCIe fabric 151 formed from PCIe switch elements 150 andvarious corresponding PCIe links. PCIe fabric 151 configured tocommunicatively couple a plurality of physical computing components andestablish compute units using logical partitioning within the PCIefabric.

These compute units, referred to in FIG. 1 as machine(s) 160, can eachbe comprised of any number of CPUs of processing modules 120, PCIedevices 125, storage units 130, network interfaces 140 modules, and GPUs170, including zero of any module. Some or all of the compute units 160may be configured to provide fabric enabled peer-to-peer data transfersusing peer-to-peer relationship 180. Such fabric enabled peer-to-peerdata transfer functionality may be performed without relying on specialcapabilities of individual PCIe endpoints of the plurality of physicalcomputing components to perform peer-to-peer data transfers.

The components of platform 100 can be included in one or more physicalenclosures, such as rack-mountable units which can further be includedin shelving or rack units. A predetermined number of components ofplatform 100 can be inserted or installed into a physical enclosure,such as a modular framework where modules can be inserted and removedaccording to the needs of a particular end user. An enclosed modularsystem, such as platform 100, can include physical support structure andenclosure that includes circuitry, printed circuit boards, semiconductorsystems, and structural elements. The modules that comprise thecomponents of platform 100 are insertable and removable from a rackmountstyle of enclosure. In some examples, the elements of FIG. 1 areincluded in a 2U chassis for mounting in a larger rackmount environment.It should be understood that the components of FIG. 1 can be included inany physical mounting environment, and need not include any associatedenclosures or rackmount elements.

Once the components of platform 100 have been inserted into theenclosure or enclosures, the components can be coupled over the PCIefabric and logically isolated into any number of separate compute unitscalled “machines” or compute blocks. The PCIe fabric can be configuredby management processor 110 to selectively route traffic among thecomponents of a particular processor module and with external systems,while maintaining logical isolation between components not included in aparticular processor module. In this way, a flexible “bare metal”configuration can be established among the components of platform 100.The individual compute blocks can be associated with external users orclient machines that can utilize the computing, storage, network, orgraphics processing resources of the compute block. Moreover, any numberof compute blocks can be grouped into a “cluster” of compute blocks forgreater parallelism and capacity. Although not shown in FIG. 1 forclarity, various power supply modules and associated power and controldistribution links can also be included.

Turning now to the components of platform 100, management processor 110can comprise one or more microprocessors and other processing circuitrythat retrieves and executes software, such as user interface 112 andmanagement operating system 111, from an associated storage system.Processor 110 can be implemented within a single processing device butcan also be distributed across multiple processing devices orsub-systems that cooperate in executing program instructions. Examplesof processor 110 include general purpose central processing units,application specific processors, and logic devices, as well as any othertype of processing device, combinations, or variations thereof. In someexamples, processor 110 comprises an Intel® or AMD® microprocessor, ARM®microprocessor, field-programmable gate array (FPGA), applicationspecific integrated circuit (ASIC), application specific processor, orother microprocessor or processing elements.

In FIG. 1 , processor 110 provides interface 113. Interface 113comprises a communication link between processor 110 and any componentcoupled to PCIe fabric 151, which may comprise a PCIe link. In someexamples, this interface may employ Ethernet traffic transported over aPCIe link. Additionally, each processing module 120 in FIG. 1 isconfigured with driver 141 which may provide for Ethernet communicationover PCIe links. Thus, any of processing module 120 and managementprocessor 110 can communicate over Ethernet that is transported over thePCIe fabric. However, implementations are not limited to Ethernet overPCIe and other communication interfaces may be used, including standardPCIe traffic over PCIe interfaces.

A plurality of processing modules 120 are included in platform 100. Eachprocessing module 120 includes one or more CPUs or microprocessors andother processing circuitry that retrieves and executes software, such asdriver 141 and any number of end user applications, from an associatedstorage system. Each processing module 120 can be implemented within asingle processing device but can also be distributed across multipleprocessing devices or sub-systems that cooperate in executing programinstructions. Examples of each processing module 120 include generalpurpose central processing units, application specific processors, andlogic devices, as well as any other type of processing device,combinations, or variations thereof. In some examples, each processingmodule 120 comprises an Intel® or AMD® microprocessor, ARM®microprocessor, graphics processor, compute cores, graphics cores,application specific integrated circuit (ASIC), field-programmable gatearray (FPGA), or other microprocessor or processing elements. Eachprocessing module 120 can also communicate with other compute units,such as those in a same storage assembly/enclosure or another storageassembly/enclosure over one or more PCIe interfaces and PCIe fabric 151.

PCIe devices 125 comprise one or more instances of specializedcircuitry, ASIC circuitry, or FPGA circuitry, among other circuitry.PCIe devices 125 each include a PCIe interface comprising one or morePCIe lanes. These PCIe interfaces can be employed to communicate overPCIe fabric 151. PCIe devices 125 can include processing components,memory components, storage components, interfacing components, amongother components. PCIe devices 125 might comprise PCIe endpoint devicesor PCIe host devices which may or may not have a root complex.

When PCIe devices 125 comprise FPGA devices, example implementations caninclude Xilinx® Alveo™ (U200/U250/U280) devices, or other FPGA deviceswhich include PCIe interfaces. FPGA devices, when employed in PCIedevices 125, can receive processing tasks from another PCIe device, suchas a CPU or GPU, to offload those processing tasks into the FPGAprogrammable logic circuitry. An FPGA is typically initialized into aprogrammed state using configuration data, and this programmed stateincludes various logic arrangements, memory circuitry, registers,processing cores, specialized circuitry, and other features whichprovide for specialized or application-specific circuitry. FPGA devicescan be re-programmed to change the circuitry implemented therein, aswell as to perform a different set of processing tasks at differentpoints in time. FPGA devices can be employed to perform machine learningtasks, implement artificial neural network circuitry, implement custominterfacing or glue logic, perform encryption/decryption tasks, performblock chain calculations and processing tasks, or other tasks. In someexamples, a CPU will provide data to be processed by the FPGA over aPCIe interface to the FPGA. The FPGA can process this data to produce aresult and provide this result over the PCIe interface to the CPU. Morethan one CPU and/or FPGA might be involved to parallelize tasks overmore than one device or to serially process data through more than onedevice.

The management processor 110 may include a configuration data storage,among other configuration data. In some examples, PCIe devices 125include locally-stored configuration data which may be supplemented,replaced, or overridden using configuration data stored in theconfiguration data storage. This configuration data can comprisefirmware, programmable logic programs, bitstreams, or objects, PCIedevice initial configuration data, among other configuration datadiscussed herein. When PCIe devices 125 include FPGA devices, such asFPGA chips, circuitry, and logic, PCIe devices 125 might also includestatic random-access memory (SRAM) devices, programmable read-onlymemory (PROM) devices used to perform boot programming, power-onconfiguration, or other functions to establish an initial configurationfor the FPGA device. In some examples, the SRAM or PROM devices can beincorporated into FPGA circuitry.

A plurality of storage units 130 are included in platform 100. Eachstorage unit 130 includes one or more storage drives, such as solidstate drives in some examples. Each storage unit 130 also includes PCIeinterfaces, control processors, and power system elements. Each storageunit 130 also includes an on-sled processor or control system fortraffic statistics and status monitoring, among other operations. Eachstorage unit 130 comprises one or more solid state memory devices with aPCIe interface. In yet other examples, each storage unit 130 comprisesone or more separate solid state drives (SSDs) or magnetic hard diskdrives (HDDs) along with associated enclosures and circuitry.

A plurality of graphics processing units (GPUs) 170 are included inplatform 100. Each GPU comprises a graphics processing resource that canbe allocated to one or more compute units. The GPUs can comprisegraphics processors, shaders, pixel render elements, frame buffers,texture mappers, graphics cores, graphics pipelines, graphics memory, orother graphics processing and handling elements. In some examples, eachGPU 170 comprises a graphics ‘card’ comprising circuitry that supports aGPU chip. Example GPU cards include nVIDIA® Jetson cards that includegraphics processing elements and compute elements, along with varioussupport circuitry, connectors, and other elements. In further examples,other style of graphics processing units or graphics processingassemblies can be employed, such as machine learning processing units,tensor processing units (TPUs), or other specialized processors that mayinclude similar elements as GPUs but lack rendering components to focusprocessing and memory resources on processing of data.

Network interfaces 140 include network interface cards for communicatingover TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol (TCP)/Internet Protocol)networks or for carrying user traffic, such as iSCSI (Internet SmallComputer System Interface) or NVMe (NVM Express) traffic for storageunits 130 or other TCP/IP traffic for processing modules 120. Networkinterfaces 140 can comprise Ethernet interface equipment, and cancommunicate over wired, optical, or wireless links. External access tocomponents of platform 100 is provided over packet network linksprovided by network interfaces 140. Network interfaces 140 communicatewith other components of platform 100, such as processing modules 120,PCIe devices 125, and storage units 130 over associated PCIe links andPCIe fabric 151. In some examples, network interfaces are provided forintra-system network communication among for communicating over Ethernetnetworks for exchanging communications between any of processing modules120 and management processors 110.

Each PCIe switch 150 communicates over associated PCIe links. In theexample in FIG. 1 , PCIe switches 150 can be used for carrying user databetween PCIe devices 125, network interfaces 140, storage modules 130,and processing modules 120. Each PCIe switch 150 comprises a PCIe crossconnect switch for establishing switched connections between any PCIeinterfaces handled by each PCIe switch 150. In some examples, each PCIeswitch 150 comprises a PLX Technology PEX8725 10-port, 24 lane PCIeswitch chip. In other examples, each PCIe switch 150 comprises a PLXTechnology PEX8796 24-port, 96 lane PCIe switch chip.

The PCIe switches discussed herein can comprise PCIe crosspointswitches, which logically interconnect various ones of the associatedPCIe links based at least on the traffic carried by each PCIe link. Inthese examples, a domain-based PCIe signaling distribution can beincluded which allows segregation of PCIe ports of a PCIe switchaccording to user-defined groups. The user-defined groups can be managedby processor 110 which logically integrate components into associatedcompute units 160 of a particular cluster and logically isolatecomponents and compute units among different clusters. In addition to,or alternatively from the domain-based segregation, each PCIe switchport can be a non-transparent (NT) or transparent port. An NT port canallow some logical isolation between endpoints, much like a bridge,while a transparent port does not allow logical isolation, and has theeffect of connecting endpoints in a purely switched configuration.Access over an NT port or ports can include additional handshakingbetween the PCIe switch and the initiating endpoint to select aparticular NT port or to allow visibility through the NT port.

Advantageously, this NT port-based segregation or domain-basedsegregation can allow physical components (i.e. CPU, GPU, storage,network) only to have visibility to those components that are includedvia the segregation/partitioning. Thus, groupings among a plurality ofphysical components can be achieved using logical partitioning among thePCIe fabric. This partitioning is scalable in nature, and can bedynamically altered as-needed by a management processor or other controlelements. The management processor can control PCIe switch circuitrythat comprises the PCIe fabric to alter the logical partitioning orsegregation among PCIe ports and thus alter composition of groupings ofthe physical components. These groupings, referred herein as computeunits, can individually form “machines” and can be further grouped intoclusters of many compute units/machines. Physical components, such asstorage drives, processors, or network interfaces, can be added to orremoved from compute units according to user instructions received overa user interface, dynamically in response to loading/idle conditions, orpreemptively due to anticipated need, among other considerationsdiscussed herein.

As used herein, unless specified otherwise, domain and partition areintended to be interchangeable and may include similar schemes referredto by one of skill in the art as either domain and partition in PCIe andsimilar network technology. Further, as used herein, unless specifiedotherwise, segregating and partitioning are intended to beinterchangeable and may include similar schemes referred to by one ofskill in the art as either segregating and partitioning in PCIe andsimilar network technology.

PCIe can support multiple bus widths, such as x1, x2, x4, x8, x16, andx32, with each multiple of bus width comprising an additional “lane” fordata transfer. PCIe also supports transfer of sideband signaling, suchas System Management Bus (SMBus) interfaces, as well as associatedclocks, power, and bootstrapping, among other signaling. PCIe also mighthave different implementations or versions employed herein. For example,PCIe version 3.0 or later (e.g. 4.0, 5.0, and later) might be employed.Moreover, next-generation interfaces can be employed, such as CacheCoherent Interconnect for Accelerators (CCIX), or Open CoherentAccelerator Processor Interface (OpenCAPI). Also, although PCIe is usedin FIG. 1 , it should be understood that different communication linksor busses can instead be employed, such as NVMe, Ethernet, SerialAttached SCSI (SAS), Gen-Z, FibreChannel, Thunderbolt, Serial AttachedATA Express (SATA Express), among other interconnect, network, and linkinterfaces. NVMe (NVM Express) is an interface standard for mass storagedevices, such as hard disk drives and solid state memory devices. NVMecan supplant serial ATA (SATA) interfaces for interfacing with massstorage devices in personal computers and server environments. However,these NVMe interfaces are limited to one-to-one host-drive relationship,similar to SATA devices. In the examples discussed herein, a PCIeinterface can be employed to transport NVMe traffic and present amulti-drive system comprising many storage drives as one or more NVMevirtual logical unit numbers (VLUNs) over a PCIe interface.

Any of the links in FIG. 1 can each use various communication media,such as air, space, metal, optical fiber, or some other signalpropagation path, including combinations thereof. Any of the links inFIG. 1 can include any number of PCIe links or lane configurations. Anyof the links in FIG. 1 can each be a direct link or might includevarious equipment, intermediate components, systems, and networks. Anyof the links in FIG. 1 can each be a common link, shared link,aggregated link, or may be comprised of discrete, separate links.

In FIG. 1 , any processing module 120 has configurable logicalvisibility to any/all storage units 130, GPU 170, PCIe devices 125, orother physical components of platform 100, as segregated logically bythe PCIe fabric. Any processing module 120 can transfer data for storageon any storage unit 130 and retrieve data stored on any storage unit130. Thus, ‘m’ number of storage drives can be coupled with ‘n’ numberof processors to allow for a large, scalable architecture with ahigh-level of redundancy and density. Furthermore, any processing module120 can transfer data for processing by any GPU 170 or PCIe devices 125,or hand off control of any GPU or FPGA to another processing module 120.

To provide visibility of each processing module 120 to any PCIe device125, storage unit 130, or GPU 170, various techniques can be employed.In a first example, management processor 110 establishes a cluster thatincludes one or more compute units 160. These compute units comprise oneor more processing modules 120, zero or more PCIe devices 125, zero ormore storage units 130, zero or more network interface units 140, andzero or more graphics processing units 170. Elements of these computeunits are communicatively coupled by portions of PCIe fabric 151. Oncecompute units 160 have been assigned to a particular cluster, furtherresources can be assigned to that cluster, such as storage resources,graphics processing resources, and network interface resources, amongother resources. Management processor 110 can instantiate/bind a subsetnumber of the total quantity of storage resources of platform 100 to aparticular cluster and for use by one or more compute units 160 of thatcluster. For example, 16 storage drives spanning 4 storage units mightbe assigned to a group of two compute units 160 in a cluster. Thecompute units 160 assigned to a cluster then handle transactions forthat subset of storage units, such as read and write transactions.

Each compute unit 160, specifically each processor of the compute unit,can have memory-mapped or routing-table based visibility to the storageunits or graphics units within that cluster, while other units notassociated with a cluster are generally not accessible to the computeunits until logical visibility is granted. Moreover, each compute unitmight only manage a subset of the storage or graphics units for anassociated cluster. Storage operations or graphics processing operationsmight, however, be received over a network interface associated with afirst compute unit that are managed by a second compute unit. When astorage operation or graphics processing operation is desired for aresource unit not managed by a first compute unit (i.e. managed by thesecond compute unit), the first compute unit uses the memory mappedaccess or routing-table based visibility to direct the operation to theproper resource unit for that transaction, by way of the second computeunit. The transaction can be transferred and transitioned to theappropriate compute unit that manages that resource unit associated withthe data of the transaction. For storage operations, the PCIe fabric isused to transfer data between compute units/processors of a cluster sothat a particular compute unit/processor can store the data in thestorage unit or storage drive that is managed by that particular computeunit/processor, even though the data might be received over a networkinterface associated with a different compute unit/processor. Forgraphics processing operations, the PCIe fabric is used to transfergraphics data and graphics processing commands between computeunits/processors of a cluster so that a particular computeunit/processor can control the GPU or GPUs that are managed by thatparticular compute unit/processor, even though the data might bereceived over a network interface associated with a different computeunit/processor. Thus, while each particular compute unit of a clusteractually manages a subset of the total resource units (such as storagedrives in storage units or graphics processors in graphics units), allcompute units of a cluster have visibility to, and can initiatetransactions to, any of resource units of the cluster. A managingcompute unit that manages a particular resource unit can receivere-transferred transactions and any associated data from an initiatingcompute unit by at least using a memory-mapped address space or routingtable to establish which processing module handles storage operationsfor a particular set of storage units.

In graphics processing examples, NT partitioning or domain-basedpartitioning in the switched PCIe fabric can be provided by one or moreof the PCIe switches with NT ports or domain-based features. Thispartitioning can ensure that GPUs can be interworked with a desiredcompute unit and that more than one GPU, such as more than eight (8)GPUs can be associated with a particular compute unit. Moreover, dynamicGPU-compute unit relationships can be adjusted on-the-fly usingpartitioning across the PCIe fabric. Shared network resources can alsobe applied across compute units for graphics processing elements. Forexample, when a first compute processor determines that the firstcompute processor does not physically manage the graphics unitassociated with a received graphics operation, then the first computeprocessor transfers the graphics operation over the PCIe fabric toanother compute processor of the cluster that does manage the graphicsunit.

In further examples, memory mapped direct memory access (DMA) conduitscan be formed between individual CPU/PCIe device pairs. This memorymapping can occur over the PCIe fabric address space, among otherconfigurations. To provide these DMA conduits over a shared PCIe fabriccomprising many CPUs and GPUs, the logical partitioning described hereincan be employed. Specifically, NT ports or domain-based partitioning onPCIe switches can isolate individual DMA conduits among the associatedCPUs/GPUs.

In FPGA-based processing examples, NT partitioning or domain-basedpartitioning in the switched PCIe fabric can be provided by one or moreof the PCIe switches with NT ports or domain-based features. Thispartitioning can ensure that PCIe devices comprising FPGA devices can beinterworked with a desired compute unit and that more than one FPGA canbe associated with a particular compute unit. Moreover, dynamicFPGA-compute unit relationships can be adjusted on-the-fly usingpartitioning across the PCIe fabric. Shared network resources can alsobe applied across compute units for FPGA processing elements. Forexample, when a first compute processor determines that the firstcompute processor does not physically manage the FPGA associated with areceived FPGA operation, then the first compute processor transfers theFPGA operation over the PCIe fabric to another compute processor of thecluster that does manage the FPGA. In further examples, memory mappeddirect memory access (DMA) conduits can be formed between individualCPU/FPGA pairs. This memory mapping can occur over the PCIe fabricaddress space, among other configurations. To provide these DMA conduitsover a shared PCIe fabric comprising many CPUs and FPGAs, the logicalpartitioning described herein can be employed. Specifically, NT ports ordomain-based partitioning on PCIe switches can isolate individual DMAconduits among the associated CPUs/FPGAs.

In storage operations, such as a write operation, data can be receivedover network interfaces 140 of a particular cluster by a particularprocessor of that cluster. Load balancing or other factors can allow anynetwork interface of that cluster to receive storage operations for anyof the processors of that cluster and for any of the storage units ofthat cluster. For example, the write operation can be a write operationreceived over a first network interface 140 of a first cluster from anend user employing an iSCSI protocol or NVMe protocol. A first processorof the cluster can receive the write operation and determine if thefirst processor manages the storage drive or drives associated with thewrite operation, and if the first processor does, then the firstprocessor transfers the data for storage on the associated storagedrives of a storage unit over the PCIe fabric. The individual PCIeswitches 150 of the PCIe fabric can be configured to route PCIe trafficassociated with the cluster among the various storage, processor, andnetwork elements of the cluster, such as using domain-based routing orNT ports. If the first processor determines that the first processordoes not physically manage the storage drive or drives associated withthe write operation, then the first processor transfers the writeoperation to another processor of the cluster that does manage thestorage drive or drives over the PCIe fabric. Data striping can beemployed by any processor to stripe data for a particular writetransaction over any number of storage drives or storage units, such asover one or more of the storage units of the cluster.

In this example, PCIe fabric 151 associated with platform 100 has 64-bitaddress spaces, which allows an addressable space of 2⁶⁴ bytes, leadingto at least 16 exbibytes of byte-addressable memory. The 64-bit PCIeaddress space can be shared by all compute units or segregated amongvarious compute units forming clusters for appropriate memory mapping toresource units. Individual PCIe switches 150 of the PCIe fabric can beconfigured to segregate and route PCIe traffic associated withparticular clusters among the various storage, compute, graphicsprocessing, and network elements of the cluster. This segregation androuting can be establishing using domain-based routing or NT ports toestablish cross-point connections among the various PCIe switches of thePCIe fabric. Redundancy and failover pathways can also be established sothat traffic of the cluster can still be routed among the elements ofthe cluster when one or more of the PCIe switches fails or becomesunresponsive. In some examples, a mesh configuration is formed by thePCIe switches of the PCIe fabric to ensure redundant routing of PCIetraffic.

Management processor 110 controls the operations of PCIe switches 150and PCIe fabric 151 over one or more interfaces, which can includeinter-integrated circuit (I2C) interfaces that communicatively coupleeach PCIe switch of the PCIe fabric. Management processor 110 canestablish NT-based or domain-based segregation among a PCIe addressspace using PCIe switches 150. Each PCIe switch can be configured tosegregate portions of the PCIe address space to establishcluster-specific partitioning. Various configuration settings of eachPCIe switch can be altered by management processor 110 to establish thedomains and cluster segregation. In some examples, management processor110 can include a PCIe interface and communicate/configure the PCIeswitches over the PCIe interface or sideband interfaces transportedwithin the PCIe protocol signaling.

In some embodiments, while establishing compute unit 160 (e.g. computeunit 160 of domain ‘x’ of PCIe fabric 151), management processor 110 mayconfigure one or more PCIe switches 150 communicatively coupling thephysical components of the domain to provide functionality forpeer-to-peer data transfers using peer-to-peer relationship 180. In somecases, peer-to-peer data transfers may operate without needing the PCIeendpoint devices to have such functionality provided, for example, bythe manufacturer. In some examples, management processor 110 mayconfigure the PCIe switches to perform monitoring of the PCIe datatraffic to trap and redirect detected data transfers to a proper PCIeendpoint device without passing through the host processor or the hostprocessor memory. For example, host processor 120 may establish addressranges associated with peer-to-peer data transfers for one or more ofthe PCIe endpoint devices of the domain (e.g. during or following PCIeenumeration). In some examples, the address ranges may be in addition toaddresses or address ranges assigned to the PCIe devices by an operatingsystem during normal PCIe enumeration. Further, the address rangesassociated with peer-to-peer data transfers may be virtual PCIe addressranges that are each associated with a corresponding PCIe device of acompute unit. The PCIe switches may establish and populate address trapsto monitor and redirect data transfers directed to the address rangesassociated with peer-to-peer data transfers. The host processor may thenissue instructions to the PCIe endpoint devices to perform peer-to-peerdata transfers as, for example, normal direct memory access (DMA) datatransfers but instruct the endpoint devices to use the addresses withinaddress ranges associated with peer-to-peer data transfers whenfulfilling the request. The address traps in the PCIe switches may thendetect and redirect the data transfers to the physical PCIe addresses ofthe destination PCIe device associated with the detected address range.Additional discussion of this functionality is provided below.

Management operating system (OS) 111 is executed by management processor110 and provides for management of resources of platform 100. Themanagement includes creation, alteration, and monitoring of one or moreclusters comprising one or more compute units. Management OS 111provides for the functionality and operations described herein formanagement processor 110.

Management processor 110 also includes user interface 112, which canpresent graphical user interface (GUI) 190 to one or more users. Userinterface 112 and GUI 190 can be employed by end users or administratorsto establish clusters, assign assets (compute units/machines) to eachcluster. In FIG. 1 , GUI 190 allows end users to create and administerclusters as well as assign one or more machine/compute units to theclusters. In some examples, the user interface 112 and GUI 190 may allowthe end user to determine what PCIe fabric enabled peer-to-peer datatransfers are to be enabled within the domain. GUI 190 providestelemetry information for the operation of system 100 to end users, suchas in one or more status interfaces or status views. The state ofvarious components or elements of system 100 can be monitored throughGUI 190, such as processor/CPU state, network state, storage unit state,PCIe element state, among others. User interface 112 can provide otheruser interfaces than GUI 190, such as command line interfaces,application programming interfaces (APIs), or other interfaces. In someexamples, GUI 190 is provided over a websockets-based interface.

One or more management processors can be included in a system, such aswhen each management processor can manage resources for a predeterminednumber of clusters or compute units. User commands, such as thosereceived over a GUI, can be received into any of the managementprocessors of a system and forwarded by the receiving managementprocessor to the handling management processor. Each managementprocessor can have a unique or pre-assigned identifier which can aid indelivery of user commands to the proper management processor.Additionally, management processors can communicate with each other,such as using a mailbox process or other data exchange technique. Thiscommunication can occur over dedicated sideband interfaces, such as I2Cinterfaces, or can occur over PCIe or Ethernet interfaces that coupleeach management processor.

Management OS 111 also includes emulated network interface 113. Emulatednetwork interface 113 comprises a transport mechanism for transportingnetwork traffic over one or more PCIe interfaces. Emulated networkinterface 113 can emulate a network device, such as an Ethernet device,to management processor 110 so that management processor 110 caninteract/interface with any of processing modules 120 over a PCIeinterface as if the processor was communicating over a networkinterface. Emulated network interface 113 can comprise a kernel-levelelement or module which allows management OS 111 to interface usingEthernet-style commands and drivers. Emulated network interface 113allows applications or OS-level processes to communicate with theemulated network device without having associated latency and processingoverhead associated with a network stack. Emulated network interface 113comprises a software component, such as a driver, module, kernel-levelmodule, or other software component that appears as a network device tothe application-level and system-level software executed by theprocessor device.

In the examples herein, network interface 113 advantageously does notrequire network stack processing to transfer communications. Instead,emulated network interface 113 transfers communications as associatedtraffic over a PCIe interface or PCIe fabric to another emulated networkdevice. Emulated network interface 113 does not employ network stackprocessing yet still appears as network device to the operating systemof an associated processor, so that user software or operating systemelements of the associated processor can interact with network interface113 and communicate over a PCIe fabric using existing network-facingcommunication methods, such as Ethernet communications.

Emulated network interface 113 translates PCIe traffic into networkdevice traffic and vice versa. Processing communications transferred tothe network device over a network stack is omitted, where the networkstack would typically be employed for the type of networkdevice/interface presented. For example, the network device might bepresented as an Ethernet device to the operating system or applications.Communications received from the operating system or applications are tobe transferred by the network device to one or more destinations.However, emulated network interface 113 does not include a network stackto process the communications down from an application layer down to alink layer. Instead, emulated network interface 113 extracts the payloaddata and destination from the communications received from the operatingsystem or applications and translates the payload data and destinationinto PCIe traffic, such as by encapsulating the payload data into PCIeframes using addressing associated with the destination.

Management driver 141 is included on each processing module 120.Management driver 141 can include emulated network interfaces, such asdiscussed for emulated network interface 113. Additionally, managementdriver 141 monitors operation of the associated processing module 120and software executed by a CPU of processing module 120 and providestelemetry for this operation to management processor 110. Thus, any userprovided software can be executed by CPUs of processing modules 120,such as user-provided operating systems (Windows, Linux, MacOS, Android,iOS, etc. . . . ) or user application software and drivers. Managementdriver 141 provides functionality to allow each processing module 120 toparticipate in the associated compute unit and/or cluster, as well asprovide telemetry data to an associated management processor. Eachprocessing module 120 can also communicate with each other over anemulated network device that transports the network traffic over thePCIe fabric. Driver 141 also provides an API for user software andoperating systems to interact with driver 141 as well as exchangecontrol/telemetry signaling with management processor 110.

In some examples, management driver 141 may provide an interface tomanagement processor 110 through which management processor 110 mayinstruct host processor 120 to establish address ranges associated withpeer-to-peer data transfers for one or more of the PCIe endpoint devicesof the compute unit. Driver 141 may also provide functionality for thehost processor to provide the address ranges associated withpeer-to-peer data transfers to the management processor 110 or the PCIeswitches 150 of the PCIe fabric 151 for use in populating address traps.Driver 141, other drivers or software may also provide an API for usersoftware and operating systems to interact with driver 141 to issue PCIefabric enabled peer-to-peer data transfer instructions to PCIeendpoints.

FIG. 2 is a system diagram that includes further details on elementsfrom FIG. 1 . System 200 includes a detailed view of an implementationof processing module 120 as well as management processor 110.

In FIG. 2 , processing module 120 can be an exemplary processor in anycompute unit or machine of a cluster. Detailed view 201 shows severallayers of processing module 120. A first layer 121 is the hardware layeror “metal” machine infrastructure of processor processing module 120. Asecond layer 122 provides the OS as well as management driver 141 andAPI 144; GPU driver 142 and API 145; and storage driver 143 and API 146.Finally, a third layer 124 provides user-level applications. View 201shows that user applications can access storage, processing (CPU, GPU,or FPGA), and communication resources of the cluster, such as when theuser application comprises a clustered storage system or a clusteredprocessing system.

As discussed above, driver 141 provides an emulated network device forcommunicating over a PCIe fabric with management processor 110 (or otherprocessor elements). This may be performed as Ethernet traffictransported over PCIe. In such a case, a network stack is not employedin driver 141 to transport the traffic over PCIe. Instead, driver 141may appear as a network device to an operating system or kernel to eachprocessing module 120. User-level services/applications/software caninteract with the emulated network device without modifications from anormal or physical network device. However, the traffic associated withthe emulated network device is transported over a PCIe link or PCIefabric, as shown. API 113 can provide a standardized interface for themanagement traffic, such as for control instructions, control responses,telemetry data, status information, or other data.

In addition, management driver 141 may operate as an interface betweendevice drivers of PCIe devices of the compute unit to facilitate PCIefabric enabled peer-to-peer relationship 180. In the illustratedexample, compute unit 160 is configured to allow for peer-to-peer datatransfers using peer-to-peer relationship 180 between storage device 130and GPU 170. Accordingly, management driver 141 may provide a commandlibrary and API for user applications or the operating system to requestsuch peer-to-peer data transfers. For example, the command library mayprovide a command that initiates PCIe fabric enabled peer-to-peer datatransfers between PCIe devices. When a user application or the operatingsystem requests such a peer-to-peer data transfer, management driver 141may operate to interface with and issue commands to the device driversof the PCIe devices, such as GPU driver 142 with API 145 and storagedriver 143 with API 146. More particularly, management driver 141 mayissue commands to the PCIe device drivers through, for example, the APIsof those PCIe device drivers in such a way that the PCIe devices performdata transfers using a specified address or addresses within anestablished peer-to-peer address range. Control elements withincorresponding PCIe switch circuitry are configured to monitor foraddresses in the established peer-to-peer address ranges, data transfersmay be “trapped” by the PCIe switch circuitry and then redirected to areceiver PCIe device without passing through the host processor or thehost processor memory.

While illustrated as a management driver 141 interfacing with PCIedevice drivers to provide the above described functionality in theexample of FIG. 2 , other arrangements are possible. For example, asingle device driver may be configured to direct peer-to-peer transfersor each PCIe device driver may be modified to include peer-to-peercommands to similar to management driver 141.

In FIG. 2 , GPU driver 142 comprises a device driver present on a hostprocessor of a compute unit which interfaces with a GPU assigned to thecompute unit. GPU driver 142 can receive commands and data via API 145.These commands can include read/write commands, direct memory access(DMA) style of commands, configuration commands, initializationcommands, or other commands used to interact with the hardware of a GPU.DMA commands comprise instructions to a PCIe device, such as a GPU, totransfer data to or from a memory location of the host processor. Wheninterfacing with a particular GPU, this GPU will previously have beenassigned an address range during an enumeration process performed duringboot of the host processor.

An enumeration process discovers the PCIe device as able to communicatewith the host processor, and initializes the PCIe device in the hostprocessor for later interaction over a corresponding PCIe interface.This enumeration process also includes the host processor assigning abase address register (BAR) and address range or space within a systemmemory space of the host processor. This BAR and address range is usedfor memory mapped access to the PCIe device, and does not typicallycorrespond to physical memory or RAM coupled to the host processor. Whenapplications desire to interface with the PCIe device, such as GPU,these applications typically interact with an API or interface of thedevice driver, such as API 145 of device driver 142 for a GPU. Theapplication can issue commands through the API for handling by the PCIedevice, such as reads, writes, data transfers, data processing commands,status information requests, configuration changes, or other commands.

Although the preceding discussion related to the context of GPU driver142 and a GPU device, it should be understood that similar functionalitycan be provided for storage driver 143 and API 146, or other devicedrivers, such as those for PCIe devices 125 or network interfaces 140 inFIG. 1 . In some examples, storage driver 143 comprises an NVMe driveror similar storage device driver for interfacing with one or more datastorage drives or data storage devices. More than one device driver canbe provided in a host processor, which will depend upon the actualhardware configuration established for a compute unit and upon whichPCIe devices are enumerated during a boot process of the host processor.

In FIG. 2 , management driver 141 can act as a liaison or interworkingunit between user applications 124 and device drivers, such as GPUdriver 142 and storage driver 143. Applications 124 can interface withAPI 144 of management driver 141 to issue one or more commands 181 fordata transfer among PCIe devices using a peer-to-peer arrangementdiscussed herein. Management driver 141 interfaces with appropriatedevice drivers to issue data transfer commands 182-183 using theexisting device drivers. However, management driver 141 is aware ofpeer-to-peer relationship 180 established between selected PCIe devicesand can issue these commands 182-183 to the device drivers to enact thepeer-to-peer transfers. This typically entails using special addressesor address ranges established for the PCIe devices which are separateand different from the memory mapped address ranges established by thehost processor during boot and enumeration. These address ranges can bereferred to as ‘virtual’ in that they do not relate directly to physicallayer addressing, and instead are abstracted into a system memory spaceassociated with the host processor. Thus, for each PCIe device for whicha peer-to-peer functionality is to be established, management driver 141will establish an address range for peer-to-peer transfers. This addressrange for each PCIe device is then communicated by management driver 141to a PCIe fabric control element (such as management processor 110)which establishes one or more address traps for these address rangeswithin the corresponding PCIe fabric.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram illustrating management processor 300.Management processor 300 illustrates an example of any of the managementprocessors discussed herein, such as processor 110 of FIG. 1 .Management processor 300 includes communication interface 302, userinterface 303, and processing system 310. Processing system 310 includesprocessing circuitry 311, random access memory (RAM) 312, and storage313, although further elements can be included.

Processing circuitry 311 can be implemented within a single processingdevice but can also be distributed across multiple processing devices orsub-systems that cooperate in executing program instructions. Examplesof processing circuitry 311 include general purpose central processingunits, microprocessors, application specific processors, and logicdevices, as well as any other type of processing device. In someexamples, processing circuitry 311 includes physically distributedprocessing devices, such as cloud computing systems.

Communication interface 302 includes one or more communication andnetwork interfaces for communicating over communication links, networks,such as packet networks, the Internet, and the like. The communicationinterfaces can include PCIe interfaces, Ethernet interfaces, serialinterfaces, serial peripheral interface (SPI) links, inter-integratedcircuit (I2C) interfaces, universal serial bus (USB) interfaces, UARTinterfaces, wireless interfaces, or one or more local or wide areanetwork communication interfaces which can communicate over Ethernet orInternet protocol (IP) links. Communication interface 302 can includenetwork interfaces configured to communicate using one or more networkaddresses, which can be associated with different network links.Examples of communication interface 302 include network interface cardequipment, transceivers, modems, and other communication circuitry.

User interface 303 may include a touchscreen, keyboard, mouse, voiceinput device, audio input device, or other touch input device forreceiving input from a user. Output devices such as a display, speakers,web interfaces, terminal interfaces, and other types of output devicesmay also be included in user interface 303. User interface 303 canprovide output and receive input over a network interface, such ascommunication interface 302. In network examples, user interface 303might packetize display or graphics data for remote display by a displaysystem or computing system coupled over one or more network interfaces.Physical or logical elements of user interface 303 can provide alerts orvisual outputs to users or other operators. User interface 303 may alsoinclude associated user interface software executable by processingsystem 310 in support of the various user input and output devicesdiscussed above. Separately or in conjunction with each other and otherhardware and software elements, the user interface software and userinterface devices may support a graphical user interface, a natural userinterface, or any other type of user interface.

RAM 312 and storage 313 together can comprise a non-transitory datastorage system, although variations are possible. RAM 312 and storage313 can each comprise any storage media readable by processing circuitry311 and capable of storing software and OS images. RAM 312 can includevolatile and nonvolatile, removable and non-removable media implementedin any method or technology for storage of information, such as computerreadable instructions, data structures, program modules, or other data.Storage 313 can include non-volatile storage media, such as solid statestorage media, flash memory, phase change memory, or magnetic memory,including combinations thereof. RAM 312 and storage 313 can each beimplemented as a single storage device but can also be implementedacross multiple storage devices or sub-systems. RAM 312 and storage 313can each comprise additional elements, such as controllers, capable ofcommunicating with processing circuitry 311.

Software stored on or in RAM 312 or storage 313 can comprise computerprogram instructions, firmware, or some other form of machine-readableprocessing instructions having processes that when executed a processingsystem direct processor 300 to operate as described herein. For example,software 320 can drive processor 300 to receive user commands toestablish clusters comprising compute blocks among a plurality ofphysical computing components that include processing modules, storagemodules, and network modules. Software 320 can drive processor 300 toreceive and monitor telemetry data, statistical information, operationaldata, and other data to provide telemetry to users and alter operationof clusters according to the telemetry data or other data. Software 320can drive processor 300 to manage cluster and compute/graphics unitresources, establish domain partitioning or NT partitioning among PCIefabric elements, and interface with individual PCIe switches, amongother operations. The software can also include user softwareapplications, application programming interfaces (APIs), or userinterfaces. The software can be implemented as a single application oras multiple applications. In general, the software can, when loaded intoa processing system and executed, transform the processing system from ageneral-purpose device into a special-purpose device customized asdescribed herein.

System software 320 illustrates a detailed view of an exampleconfiguration of RAM 312. It should be understood that differentconfigurations are possible. System software 320 includes applications321 and operating system (OS) 322. Software applications 323-326 eachcomprise executable instructions which can be executed by processor 300for operating a cluster controller or other circuitry according to theoperations discussed herein.

Specifically, cluster management application 323 establishes andmaintains clusters and compute units among various hardware elements ofa computing platform, such as seen in FIG. 1 . User interfaceapplication 324 provides one or more graphical or other user interfacesfor end users to administer associated clusters and compute units andmonitor operations of the clusters and compute units. Inter-modulecommunication application 325 provides communication among otherprocessor 300 elements, such as over I2C, Ethernet, emulated networkdevices, or PCIe interfaces. User CPU interface 326 providescommunication, APIs, and emulated network devices for communicating withprocessors of compute units, and specialized driver elements thereof.PCIe fabric interface 327 establishes various logical partitioning ordomains among PCIe switch elements, controls operation of PCIe switchelements, and receives telemetry from PCIe switch elements. PCIe fabricinterface 327 also establishes address traps or address redirectionfunctions within a PCIe fabric. PCIe fabric interface 327 can interfacewith one or more PCIe switch circuitry elements to establish addressranges which are monitored and redirected, thus forming address traps inthe PCIe fabric.

Software 320 can reside in RAM 312 during execution and operation ofprocessor 300, and can reside in storage system 313 during a powered-offstate, among other locations and states. Software 320 can be loaded intoRAM 312 during a startup or boot procedure as described for computeroperating systems and applications. Software 320 can receive user inputthrough user interface 303. This user input can include user commands,as well as other input, including combinations thereof.

Storage system 313 can comprise flash memory such as NAND flash or NORflash memory, phase change memory, magnetic memory, among other solidstate storage technologies. As shown in FIG. 3 , storage system 313includes software 320. As described above, software 320 can be in anon-volatile storage space for applications and OS during a powered-downstate of processor 300, among other operating software.

Processor 300 is generally intended to represent a computing system withwhich at least software 320 is deployed and executed in order to renderor otherwise implement the operations described herein. However,processor 300 can also represent any computing system on which at leastsoftware 320 can be staged and from where software 320 can bedistributed, transported, downloaded, or otherwise provided to yetanother computing system for deployment and execution, or yet additionaldistribution.

The systems and operations discussed herein provide for dynamicassignment of computing resources, graphics processing resources,network resources, or storage resources to a computing cluster. Thecompute units are disaggregated from any particular cluster or computeunit until allocated by users of the system. Management processors cancontrol the operations of the cluster and provide user interfaces to thecluster management service provided by software executed by themanagement processors. A cluster includes at least one “machine” orcomputing unit, while a compute unit include at least a processorelement. Computing units can also include network interface elements,graphics processing elements, and storage elements, but these elementsare not required for a computing unit.

Processing resources and other elements (graphics processing, network,storage, FPGA, or other) can be swapped in and out of computing unitsand associated clusters on-the-fly, and these resources can be assignedto other computing units or clusters. In one example, graphicsprocessing resources can be dispatched/orchestrated by a first computingresource/CPU and subsequently provide graphics processing status/resultsto another compute unit/CPU. In another example, when resourcesexperience failures, hangs, overloaded conditions, then additionalresources can be introduced into the computing units and clusters tosupplement the resources.

Processing resources can have unique identifiers assigned thereto foruse in identification by the management processor and for identificationon the PCIe fabric. User supplied software such as operating systems andapplications can be deployed to processing resources as-needed when theprocessing resources are initialized after adding into a compute unit,and the user supplied software can be removed from a processing resourcewhen that resource is removed from a compute unit. The user software canbe deployed from a storage system that the management processor canaccess for the deployment. Storage resources, such as storage drives,storage devices, and other storage resources, can be allocated andsubdivided among compute units/clusters. These storage resources canspan different or similar storage drives or devices, and can have anynumber of logical units (LUNs), logical targets, partitions, or otherlogical arrangements. These logical arrangements can include one or moreLUNs, iSCSI LUNs, NVMe targets, or other logical partitioning. Arrays ofthe storage resources can be employed, such as mirrored, striped,redundant array of independent disk (RAID) arrays, or other arrayconfigurations can be employed across the storage resources. Networkresources, such as network interface cards, can be shared among thecompute units of a cluster using bridging or spanning techniques.Graphics resources (e.g. GPUs) or FPGA resources can be shared amongmore than one compute unit of a cluster using NT partitioning ordomain-based partitioning over the PCIe fabric and PCIe switches.

FIGS. 4 and 5 include further detail on a disaggregated computingarchitecture, such as discussed herein in FIG. 1 for computing platform100. More particularly, FIGS. 4 and 5 detail example configurations andmethods of operating a disaggregated computing architecture. Theseexamples include operating compute units in a clustered environment. Theclusters can be formed using one or more compute units that each includea plurality of physical computing components communicatively coupledover a Peripheral Component Interconnect Express (PCIe) fabric. Theplurality of physical computing components can be referred to herein asPCIe devices. Although PCIe device 430 is one example of a PCIe devicewhich might comprise a FPGA device or memory device, PCIe device 430 caninstead represent any PCIe-compliant device. It should be understoodthat any of the plurality of physical computing components discussedherein can comprise PCIe devices, whether they comprise PCIe hosts orPCIe endpoints.

The physical computing components include at least PCIe devices, FPGAdevices, memory devices, central processing units (CPUs), storagemodules, graphics processing modules (GPUs), and network interfacemodules. These physical computing components are all communicativelycoupled over a PCIe fabric. The PCIe fabric can isolate the computeunits from each other or within clusters in the clustered environmentusing logical partitioning within the PCIe fabric. Moreover, softwarecomponents can be deployed by a management processor to at least anassociated CPU within each of the compute units responsive to formationof the compute units. Various monitoring functions can be included inthe deployed software components, and telemetry can be reported to themanagement processor related to operation of the compute units.

In some examples, a network driver function of the software component isincluded that emulates operation of a network interface, such as anEthernet interface, to an operating system of an associated CPU of acompute unit for transfer of communications comprising at least thetelemetry to the management processor over the PCIe fabric. The networkdriver function can include functionality for transferringcommunications over the PCIe fabric for delivery to the managementprocessor without processing the communications through a network stack.

Based at least on the logical partitioning of the PCIe fabric, thecompute units have visibility over the PCIe fabric to only a subset ofthe plurality of physical computing components assigned to each of thecompute units within the PCIe fabric. Each particular compute unit lacksvisibility over the PCIe fabric to other physical computing componentsthat are communicatively coupled over the PCIe fabric and not assignedto the particular compute unit. However, the logical partitioning canalso be configured to form clusters of compute units, where the computeunits of the cluster can have visibility to other compute units of thecluster over the PCIe fabric, but be partitioned from having visibilityto compute units not of the cluster. Typically, a management processoris configured to instruct the PCIe fabric to establish the logicalpartitioning within the PCIe fabric by at least forming domain-basedPCIe segregation among ports of PCIe switches that comprise the PCIefabric. However, the management processor can be configured to instructthe PCIe fabric to establish the logical partitioning within the PCIefabric by at least forming non-transparent (NT) port-based PCIesegregation among ports of PCIe switches that comprise the PCIe fabric.

Dynamic alterations to the composition of the compute units and computeclusters can also be achieved. These dynamic alterations can beresponsive to user instructions, command line interface instructions,graphical user interface indications received from users, or byautomated processes that detect performance of the compute units andcompute clusters. For example, responsive to alteration of the logicalpartitioning by the management processor, the disaggregated platformchanges a composition of the plurality of physical computing componentswithin a compute unit. The composition of the plurality of physicalcomputing components within a compute unit can be altered to include atleast one more PCIe device, FPGA, CPU, GPU, storage module, and networkinterface module. The composition of the plurality of physical computingcomponents within a compute unit can be altered to reduce a quantity ofa PCIe device, FPGA, CPU, GPU, storage module, and network interfacemodule included in the compute unit.

Moreover, clusters can be altered to increase or decrease the number ofcompute units included therein, such as to increase processing power ofa cluster by adding more compute units on-the-fly. Thus, both computeunits and clusters can be managed dynamically for enhancedresponsiveness to workload, user requirements, scheduling, and otherconsiderations. Since the physical computing components are all coupledvia a flexible and configurable PCIe fabric, the physical computingcomponents can be spun-up and spun-down as-needed and in response tovarious conditions and requirements. In a specific example, a computeunit might not initially be formed with an FPGA or GPU, but laterrequirements or workload changes might warrant inclusion of a FPGA orGPU or more than one FPGA or GPU into the compute unit. The PCIe fabricpartitioning can be altered on-the-fly to allow one or more FPGAs orGPUs to be associated with the CPU or CPUs of the particular computeunit.

FIG. 4 illustrates a disaggregated infrastructure 400 highlightingcluster management operating system (OS) 410 executed by a managementprocessor and control of PCIe fabric 420. The management OS provides forthe management, automation, and orchestration of storage, compute, GPU,and network elements on PCIe-based fabrics. For example, PCIe deviceelements 430, storage elements 434, central processing elements (CPU)433, graphics processing elements (GPU) 432, and network interface card(NIC) elements 431 are all able to be communicatively coupled over PCIefabric 420. The PCIe fabric enables the disaggregated architecture byproviding a partition-able communication medium for coupling the variouselements into compute units and grouping the compute units intoclusters.

To provide the disaggregated architecture, FIG. 4 illustrates a pool offree elements (430-434) that have not yet been assigned to a particular“machine” 440 or compute unit and operating systems and applications 435present on the free pool of elements (431-434) or that may be deployedto storage devices for use in machines 440. The free elements arephysically present in the associated system but remain idle orunassigned to a particular cluster/machine/compute unit. The managementOS can select among the free elements and assign selected ones of thefree elements to a machine. Requirements for the machine, such as whattasks the machine is being employed for, can be processed by themanagement OS to aid in selection of proper elements among the freecompute, GPU, FPGA, network, memory, and storage elements. Users caninterface with graphical or command-line interfaces that allowdefinition or indication of the requirements or other user targets.

The management OS can select among the free elements in response to theuser requests. In some examples, the management OS may deploy software435 to storage devices to be used in a machine 440. In some examples,the management OS may respond user instructions that specify aparticular software 435 to deploy to a storage device. In otherexamples, the user instructions may include one or more fields thatidentify characteristics for software 435 to be deployed and themanagement OS may be configured to select software 435 that matches theidentified characteristics. Further, in some examples, the userinstructions may specify the storage device to receive software 435while, in other examples, the management OS may select the storagedevice, for example, based on user specifications. In addition, wherethe management OS selects software 435 and storage device, themanagement OS may determine whether a free pool storage device alreadyincludes software 435 such that the free pool storage device may beallocated to machine 440 without deployment operations.

The management OS may operate to select software 435 and free poolelements based on characteristics specified by the user. In suchexamples, the management OS can learn to recognize various requests forelements and select suitable elements from the free pool. For example,the management OS can recognize particular user-provided configurationdata, such as operating systems, user-provided applications, oruser-provided FPGA programming files, and select certain free elementsto include in one or more machines based on that recognition. In oneexample, the operating system to be executed by a particular machinemight be specified by a user to be a Linux operating system. Particularelements can be selected from the free pool to enable the machine to runthe Linux operating system. User applications, operating systems,storage requirements, interface or traffic requirements, or otherconsiderations can be used to select elements to include in eachmachine. In another example, a particular FPGA programming state orprogramming file might be selected for deployment to an FPGA device tobe included in machine 440.

Once the free pool elements are selected, the management OS may operateto perform additional configuration of the compute unit (e.g.configuring the PCIe switches of the PCIe fabric to provide PCIe fabricenabled peer-to-peer data transfers for one or more pairs of PCIedevices of the compute unit).

FIG. 5 illustrates clustered operation during dynamic “bare metal”orchestration. Several machines are shown for each cluster, withassociated machines comprised of physical elements/resources 540 such asCPUs, FPGAs, GPUs, NICs, and storage drives and software deployedthereto. The clusters are electrically isolated using PCIe fabric 520,and a management system can dynamically pull elements/resources from apool of free elements, such as seen in FIG. 4 . Thus, one or morephysical enclosures, such as a rack-mounted hardware arrangement, canhave many elements (i.e. several processors, FPGAs, network interfaces,GPUs, and storage drives) and these elements can be allocateddynamically among any number of clusters and associated computeunits/machines.

FIG. 5 illustrates example clusters, 1-N, with any number of clusterspossible depending upon the availability of resources to be assigned tomachines of the clusters. Although each cluster is shown to have threemachines, it should be understood that more or less than three machinesper cluster can be utilized. Moreover, each machine in each clusterindicates example elements assigned thereto. These assigned elements canchange dynamically according to policy based management, user commands,user instructions, preemptive or predictive allocation, idle/spin-downbased removal, or other considerations. One or more management servicesor control processors can be configured to perform this establishmentand alteration of machines and clusters using the PCIe fabric as amedium to couple the various elements dynamically.

As previously discussed, in some examples, the computing platform mayprovide for PCIe fabric enabled peer-to-peer data transfers among PCIedevices in compute units. Peer-to-peer operations are discussed herein.FIGS. 6-7 provide a flow diagrams for use in platforms and systems whichmay provide for PCIe fabric enabled peer-to-peer data transfers incompute units. FIGS. 8 and 9 illustrate the operation of the flowdiagrams of FIGS. 6 and 7 in the context of computing platforms.

FIG. 6 includes a flow diagram that illustrates an operational exampleof PCIe fabric enabled peer-to-peer data transfers in compute units forany of the systems discussed herein, such as for platform 100 of FIG. 1, system 200 of FIG. 2 , or processor 300 of FIG. 3 . In FIG. 6 ,operations will be discussed in context of elements of FIGS. 1 and 2 ,although the operations can also apply to those in FIG. 3 .

Management processor 110 may receive (601) user instructions toestablish a compute unit including PCIe fabric enabled peer-to-peer datatransfer functionality. For example, the user instructions may bereceived via a user interface as part of user instructions to establisha cluster or may be received in instructions to establish a specificcompute unit. In some examples, the user instructions may specify one ormore pairs of PCIe devices for which peer-to-peer data transferfunctionality should be enabled. In other examples, the userinstructions may operate to establish peer-to-peer data transfer linksfor all PCIe devices in the compute unit. Further, in some examples, theuser instructions may selectively specify a directionality ofpeer-to-peer data transfer links. Moreover, depending on theimplementation, each address range for the peer-to-peer data transfermay be specific to a particular source PCIe device and destination PCIedevice or may be usable for a destination PCIe device and any other PCIedevice.

Upon receiving the user instructions to establish the compute unit,management processor 110 may establish (602) a logical PCIe domain thatincludes host processor 120 and a plurality of PCIe devices (e.g.storage devices, GPUs, NICs, FPGAs, etc.). Various examples forestablishing logical domains in PCIe and similar communication systemsare discussed above. Referring to previous examples, this may operateadd devices into the logical domain from the free pool of devices.Establishing a logical PCIe domain may provide PCIe physical layervisibility between the PCIe devices of the domain. While establishingthe logical domain, the management processor 110 may further establishone or more address traps in the PCIe fabric. These one or more addresstraps are established within at least one PCIe switch within the PCIefabric. Depending on the implementation, the PCIe fabric may alreadyhave an address trap function enabled or management processor 110 mayenable the functionality while establishing the logical domain. Once theaddress trap functionality is enabled, management processor 110 mayconfigure the PCIe fabric such that the address trap functionality isprepared to be populated by a control process or management driverexecuted by the host processor.

Management processor 110 may then initialize (603) the compute unit suchthat the host processor of the compute unit boots and begins to operate.

Host processor 120 may discover and enumerate (604) PCIe devices in thelogical domain of the compute unit and establish system memory addressranges for each discovered/enumerated PCIe device. These system memoryaddress ranges are provided for memory mapped access to the PCIedevices, such as by applications executed on the host processor.Typically, a base address register (BAR) will be established for eachPCIe device enumerated and an accompanying address range with beassigned starting from that base address. This enumeration and addressassignment process can be performed by various elements of a hostprocessor, such as boot software/firmware, or instead may be handled bybasic input/output system (BIOS) circuitry or functionality, among otherelements associated with the host processor. Following the enumerationand boot of the host processor into an operating system, managementdriver 141 may interface with management processor 110 (such as overinterface 113) to determine what PCIe fabric enabled peer-to-peer datatransfer functionality is to be provided. Management driver 141 may thendetermine (605) address ranges for each peer-to-peer data relationshipto be established. For example, the host processor may establish avirtual addresses/ranges for memory mapped access to each PCIe device.Management driver 141 will then determine additional virtualaddresses/ranges for each PCIe device for which peer-to-peer datatransfers are to be established. These additional addresses/ranges arereferred to herein as peer-to-peer address ranges.

Management processor 110 then can use the peer-to-peer address ranges topopulate (606) address traps which establish the PCIe fabric enabledpeer-to-peer data transfer functionality. For example, managementprocessor 110 may populate control circuitry or control elements withinvarious PCIe switches of the PCIe fabric to establish address look-uptables (LUTs) for the address traps. These LUTs indicate relationshipsbetween the peer-to-peer address ranges (for each destination PCIedevice to enabled with peer-to-peer data transfer functionality) andphysical PCIe addresses/ranges of corresponding destination PCIedevices.

The compute unit may then be prepared for peer-to-peer data transferoperation. FIG. 7 provides an example flow diagram for the handling of apeer-to-peer data transfer in a compute unit established according toFIG. 6 . FIG. 7 includes a flow diagram that illustrates an operationalexample of PCIe fabric enabled peer-to-peer data transfers in computeunits for any of the systems discussed herein, such as for platform 100of FIG. 1 , system 200 of FIG. 2 , or processor 300 of FIG. 3 . In FIG.7 , operations will be discussed in context of elements of FIGS. 1 and 2, although the operations can also apply to those in FIG. 3 .

In FIG. 7 , management driver 141 receives (701) a request for a PCIefabric enabled peer-to-peer data transfer between two PCIe devices. Thisrequest might be issued by an application executed by a host processorof the compute unit which indicates that a peer-to-peer transfer isdesired. Management driver 141 determines (702) instructions to issue toa device driver associated with a source PCIe device or initiator PCIedevice. These instructions indicate addresses corresponding to thepeer-to-peer address ranges. The device driver for the source PCIedevice then uses these addresses corresponding to the peer-to-peeraddress ranges. The device driver for the source PCIe device issuesinstructions to the source PCIe device to initiate a peer-to-peer datatransfer. These instructions indicate one or more target addressescorresponding to the peer-to-peer address ranges.

The source PCIe device then performs (703) the data transfer bydirecting communications to the one or more target addresses. The PCIedevice is typically not aware that these one or more target addressescorrespond to an address trap established in the PCIe fabric, and willperform the data transfer as the source PCIe device normally would for anon-peer-to-peer transfer. The one or more target addresses correspondto a target PCIe device, but comprise virtual addresses previouslydetermined by management driver 141 which are separate and differentthan virtual addresses determined for the target PCIe device by a hostprocessor during device enumeration. The source PCIe device may performthe data transfer as a direct memory access (DMA) data transfer. Insteadof this DMA traffic being directed to the host processor, the addresstrap redirects this traffic through the PCIe fabric to the target PCIedevice—bypassing the host processor. The address trap performs one ormore address translation functions discussed below.

An address trap of one of the PCIe switches detects (704) the datatransfer as using an address from the address ranges for peer-to-peerdata transfers. The address trap may redirect the detected PCIe datatransfer to the destination PCIe device without passing through hostmemory or the host processor. For example, the address trap may refer toan address table of relationships between address ranges forpeer-to-peer data transfers and corresponding physical PCIe address ofthe corresponding PCIe device.

FIGS. 8 and 9 illustrate the operation of the processes discussed abovewith regard to FIGS. 6 and 7 in the context of computing platforms 800and 900. For sake of brevity, the entire discussion of the processes ofFIGS. 6-7 will not be repeated and the discussion of FIGS. 6-7 may beused for additional details for the operations discussed with regard toFIGS. 8 and 9 .

FIG. 8 is presented to illustrate an example of the operation of theprocess discussed above with regard to FIG. 6 in the context of acomputing platform. In FIG. 8 , computing platform 800 is presented andperforms operations 880 and 885. Computing platform 800 includes amanagement CPU 810, PCIe fabric 850, as well assemblies 801-802 thathouse a plurality associated CPUs, GPUS and storage devices 861-866 aswell as corresponding PCIe switches 851-852, respectively. Assemblies801-802 might comprise any chassis, rackmount or “just a box of disks”(JBOD) assemblies. A number of PCIe links interconnect the elements ofFIG. 8 , namely PCIe links 853-855. In some examples, PCIe link 855 maycomprise a special control/management link that enables administrativeor management-level access of control to PCIe fabric 850. However, itshould be understood that similar links to the other PCIe links caninstead be employed. PCIe switches 851 and 852 and the switches of thePCIe fabric 850 may each include one or more address traps 831-833.

These address traps comprise an address monitoring portion and,depending on the implementation, an address translation portion. Theaddress monitoring portion monitors PCIe destination addresses in PCIeframes or other PCIe traffic to determine if one or more addresses ofthe address ranges established for PCIe fabric enabled peer-to-peer datatransfers are encountered. If addresses within the peer-to-peer addressranges are encountered, then the address traps redirect the PCI trafficto a PCIe device associated with the peer-to-peer address range in whichthe encountered address fell. For example, the address translationportion may translate the original destination addresses that fallwithin a peer-to-peer address range established for peer-to-peer datatransfers into a physical PCIe destination addresses of the destinationPCIe device associated with the peer-to-peer address range, and transferthe PCIe traffic for delivery to the translated PCIe destinationaddresses.

Address traps 831-833 can include one or more address translation tablesor other data structures, such as example table 834, that maptranslations between incoming destination addresses and outbounddestination addresses that are used to modify PCIe addressesaccordingly. Table 834 may contain entries that translate addressingfrom the peer-to-peer address ranges established for peer-to-peer datatransfers to physical PCIe addresses of the destination PCIe deviceassociated with the address range into which the incoming destinationaddress falls. However, implementations are not limited to theseexamples. Alternatively, or in addition, the address traps 831-833 ortable 834 may operate in various other manners to reroute a trapped datatransfer to the destination PCIe device without passing through the hostprocessor or host memory. For example, in some implementations, theaddress trap may comprise a content addressable memory (CAM) or ternaryCAM storing one or more lookup tables (LUTs).

Turning to the operation of the computing platform 800, the managementCPU 810 may perform the operations 880 while the Host CPU 864 mayperform operations 885. As discussed below, these operations interact toestablish a compute unit with PCIe fabric enabled peer-to-peer datatransfers.

In operation 881, the management CPU 810 may receive user instructionsto establish a compute unit including PCIe fabric enabled peer-to-peerdata transfer functionality. In operation 882, the management CPU 810may establish a logical domain 890 for the compute unit. This mayinclude allocating physical resources for the compute unit including GPU863, CPU 864 and storage device 865. The management CPU 810 may thenestablish the logical domain for the allocated physical resources of thecompute unit including GPU 863, CPU 864 and storage device 865. Whileestablishing the logical domain, management CPU 810 may furtherestablish one or more address traps in the PCIe fabric. These one ormore address traps are established within at least one PCIe switchwithin the PCIe fabric. In particular, the management CPU 810 mayestablish address traps 831-833 to provide PCIe fabric enabledpeer-to-peer data transfer functionality for the compute unit once it isinitialized. Once the address trap functionality is established,management processor 110 may configure the PCIe fabric such that theaddress trap functionality is prepared to be populated by a controlprocess or management driver executed by the host processor.

The operations then turn to operations 885 of host CPU 864. In operation886, host CPU 864 of the compute unit boots and begins to operate. Inoperation 887, host processor 864 may discover and enumerate PCIedevices in the logical domain of the compute unit. In the currentexample, the host processor 864 discovers and enumerates GPU 863,storage unit 865 and PCIe switches 851-852. During the enumeration, thehost CPU 864 may establish system memory address ranges for eachdiscovered/enumerated PCIe device of the compute unit.

In operation 888, following the enumeration and boot of the hostprocessor into an operating system, management driver 141 may interfacewith management processor 110 (such as over interface 113) to determinewhat PCIe fabric enabled peer-to-peer data transfer functionality is tobe provided. Management driver 141 may determine establish addressranges for each peer-to-peer relationship to be established.

In operation 883, management CPU 810 can use the peer-to-peer addressranges to populate address traps 831-833 in the PCIe switches 851 and852 and the PCIe switches of the PCIe fabric 850 to establish the PCIefabric enabled peer-to-peer data transfer functionality. In someexamples, the switches may populate the address traps by creatingrelationships between each peer-to-peer address range and a physicalPCIe address of the PCIe device corresponding to the peer-to-peeraddress range.

FIG. 9 illustrates components of computing platform 900 in animplementation. Computing platform 900 includes several elementscommunicatively coupled over a PCIe fabric formed from various PCIelinks 951-953 and one or more PCIe switch circuits 950. Host processorsor central processing units (CPUs) can be coupled to this PCI fabric forcommunication with various elements, such as those discussed in thepreceding Figures. In FIG. 9 , a PCIe domain that includes host CPU 910,PCIe devices 960-963, namely GPUs 960-961 and storage devices 962-963will be discussed. GPUs 960-961 each comprise graphics processingcircuitry and PCIe interface circuitry. Storage devices 962-963 eachcomprise storage device circuitry and PCIe interface circuitry.

Management CPU 920 can comprise control circuitry, processing circuitry,and other processing elements. Management CPU 920 can comprise elementsof management processor 110 in FIGS. 1-2 or management processor 300 ofFIG. 3 . In some examples, management CPU 920 can be coupled to a PCIefabric or to management/control ports on various PCIe switch circuitry,or incorporate the PCIe switch circuitry or control portions thereof.Management CPU 920 can communicate with PCIe switches 950 overmanagement links 954-955. These management links comprise PCIe links,such as x1 or x4 PCIe links, and may comprise I2C links, network links,or other communication links.

Management processor (CPU) 920 can establish a peer-to-peer arrangementbetween the PCIe devices. For example, management CPU 920 may establisha PCIe fabric enabled peer-to-peer relationship at least in part byestablishing address trap 980 in the PCIe fabric. Address traps, such asaddress trap 980, can include one or more address translation tables orother data structures that map translations between incoming destinationaddresses and outbound destination addresses that are used to modifyPCIe addresses accordingly. Such tables may contain entries thattranslate addressing from the peer-to-peer address ranges establishedfor peer-to-peer data transfers to physical addresses of the destinationPCIe device associated with the peer-to-peer address range into whichthe incoming destination address falls. However, implementations are notlimited to these examples. Alternatively, or in addition, the tables mayoperate in various other manners to reroute a trapped peer-to-peer datatransfer to the destination PCIe device without passing through the hostprocessor. During enumeration, the host CPU 910 may provide physicaldevice addresses for each of the PCIe devices 960-963 and then host CPU910 may determine address ranges associated with each PCIe fabricenabled peer-to-peer relationship to be established. Address trap 980,once populated with records mapping peer-to-peer address ranges to thecorresponding PCIe addresses for PCIe devices 960-963, may allow userapplications operating on host CPU 910 to initiate a peer-to-peer datatransfers among two or more PCIe devices 960-963 in platform 900. Moreparticularly, a user application operating on host CPU 910 may issue apeer-to-peer data transfer command provided by a library associated witha management driver operating on the host CPU 910. The management drivermay then interface with device drivers of one or more of the PCIedevices identified by the peer-to-peer data transfer command to initiatethe peer-to-peer data transfer.

Without a peer-to-peer arrangement, for example, traffic between PCIedevices 960-963 is typically routed through a host processor. This canbe seen in FIG. 9 as communication link 901 which shows communicationsbetween GPU 960 and storage device 962 being routed over PCIe links 951and 956, PCIe switch 950, and host CPU 910. Latency can be higher forthis arrangement, as well as other bandwidth reductions by handling thetraffic through many links, switch circuitry, and processing elements.

The peer-to-peer data transfer functionality enable the PCIe devices960-963 to communicate more directly with each other to bypasstransferring communications through host CPU 910. For example, addresstrap 980 allows for GPU 960 to communicate more directly with storagedevice 962, bypassing links 951 and host CPU 910. Less latency isencountered as well as higher bandwidth communications. Thispeer-to-peer relationship is shown in FIG. 9 as peer-to-peercommunication link 902.

Many variations of the above processes can be achieved. For example,while the example processes discussed above operates based on userinstructions to establish and operate a compute unit or clusterincluding instructions to establish a PCIe fabric enabled peer-to-peerarrangement between a GPU and a storage device, other examples mayprovide similar functionality for any other PCIe device, such as FPGAs,NICs, and so on. Further, while the address traps are configured whenestablishing the compute unit and populated following a boot procedurein the above examples, other examples may configure and populate theaddress traps after the host processor boots. For example, themanagement processor may configure the host processor to establish theaddress ranges for peer-to-peer data transfers and establish andpopulate the address traps, without intervention of the managementprocessor other than the initial instructions to the host processor.

The functional block diagrams, operational scenarios and sequences, andflow diagrams provided in the Figures are representative of exemplarysystems, environments, and methodologies for performing novel aspects ofthe disclosure. While, for purposes of simplicity of explanation,methods included herein may be in the form of a functional diagram,operational scenario or sequence, or flow diagram, and may be describedas a series of acts, it is to be understood and appreciated that themethods are not limited by the order of acts, as some acts may, inaccordance therewith, occur in a different order and/or concurrentlywith other acts from that shown and described herein. For example, thoseskilled in the art will understand and appreciate that a method couldalternatively be represented as a series of interrelated states orevents, such as in a state diagram. Moreover, not all acts illustratedin a methodology may be required for a novel implementation.

The descriptions and figures included herein depict specificimplementations to teach those skilled in the art how to make and usethe best option. For the purpose of teaching inventive principles, someconventional aspects have been simplified or omitted. Those skilled inthe art will appreciate variations from these implementations that fallwithin the scope of the present disclosure. Those skilled in the artwill also appreciate that the features described above can be combinedin various ways to form multiple implementations. As a result, theinvention is not limited to the specific implementations describedabove, but only by the claims and their equivalents.

What is claimed is:
 1. A system comprising: a management processorconfigured to initiate a communication arrangement between a firstendpoint device coupled to a communication fabric and a second endpointdevice coupled to the communication fabric; wherein the communicationarrangement is configured to redirect a transfer from the first endpointdevice based on an address corresponding to an address range of thesecond endpoint device without passing the transfer through a hostprocessor coupled to the communication fabric that executes anapplication initiating the transfer.
 2. The system of claim 1, whereinthe communication arrangement is established in the communication fabriccomprising one or more communication switch circuits.
 3. The system ofclaim 1, wherein the first endpoint device comprises a GraphicsProcessing Unit (GPU) and the second endpoint device comprises a storagedevice.
 4. The system of claim 1, wherein the communication arrangementis further established to detect an additional transfer from the secondendpoint device to one or more addresses corresponding to an addressrange for the first endpoint device, and redirect the additionaltransfer to the first endpoint device without passing the additionaltransfer through the host processor that initiates the additionaltransfer.
 5. The system of claim 1, wherein the address range of thesecond endpoint device is in addition to a memory mapped address rangeassigned to the second endpoint device within a memory space of the hostprocessor during enumeration of the second endpoint device by the hostprocessor.
 6. The system of claim 1, wherein the transfer is initiatedby a request originated by the application executed by the hostprocessor to transfer data from the first endpoint device to the secondendpoint device via a command that employs the communicationarrangement.
 7. The system of claim 1, wherein a management driverexecuted by the host processor interfaces with a first device driverassociated with the first endpoint device at least to initiate a directmemory access (DMA) transfer via the first device driver with adestination address corresponding to the address range for the secondendpoint device.
 8. The system of claim 1, wherein the communicationarrangement redirects the transfer from the first endpoint devicedirected to the one or more addresses corresponding to the address rangefor the second endpoint device at least in part by translating the oneor more addresses into physical addresses of the second endpoint device.9. A method comprising: initiating a communication arrangement between afirst endpoint device coupled to a communication fabric and a secondendpoint device coupled to the communication fabric; wherein thecommunication arrangement is configured to redirect a transfer from thefirst endpoint device based on an address corresponding to an addressrange of the second endpoint device without passing the transfer througha host processor coupled to the communication fabric that executes anapplication initiating the transfer.
 10. The method of claim 9, whereinthe communication arrangement is established in a communication fabriccomprising one or more communication switch circuits.
 11. The method ofclaim 9, wherein the first endpoint device comprises a GraphicsProcessing Unit (GPU) and the second endpoint device comprises a storagedevice.
 12. The method of claim 9, wherein at least one transfer isinitiated by a request originated by the application executed by thehost processor to transfer data from the first endpoint device to thesecond endpoint device via a command that employs the communicationarrangement.
 13. The method of claim 9, wherein a management driver ofthe host processor interfaces with a first device driver associated withthe first endpoint device at least to initiate a direct memory access(DMA) transfer via the first device driver with a destination addresscorresponding to the address range for the second endpoint device. 14.The method of claim 9, wherein the communication arrangement redirectsthe transfer from the first endpoint device directed to the one or moreaddresses corresponding to the address range for the second endpointdevice at least in part by translating the one or more addresses intophysical addresses of the second endpoint device.
 15. An apparatuscomprising: one or more computer readable storage media; programinstructions stored on the one or more computer readable storage media,that when executed by a processor, direct the processor to at least:receive, via a user interface, instructions to initiate a communicationarrangement between a first endpoint device coupled to a communicationfabric and a second endpoint device coupled to the communication fabric;wherein the communication arrangement is configured to redirect atransfer from the first endpoint device based on an addresscorresponding to an address range of the second endpoint device withoutpassing the transfer through a host processor coupled to thecommunication fabric that executes an application initiating thetransfer.
 16. The apparatus of claim 15, wherein the communicationarrangement is established over a communication fabric comprising one ormore communication switch circuits.
 17. The apparatus of claim 15,wherein the address range of the second endpoint device is in additionto a memory mapped address range assigned to the second endpoint devicewithin a memory space of the host processor during enumeration of thesecond endpoint device by the host processor.
 18. The apparatus of claim15, wherein the transfer is initiated by a request originated by theapplication executed by the host processor to transfer data from thefirst endpoint device to the second endpoint device via a command thatemploys the communication arrangement.
 19. The apparatus of claim 15,wherein a management driver executed by the host processor interfaceswith a first device driver associated with the first endpoint device atleast to initiate a direct memory access (DMA) transfer via the firstdevice driver with a destination address corresponding to the addressrange for the second endpoint device.
 20. The apparatus of claim 15,wherein the communication arrangement redirects the transfer from thefirst PCIe device directed to the one or more addresses corresponding tothe address range for the second endpoint device at least in part bytranslating the one or more addresses into physical addresses of thesecond endpoint device.